HRC Blog

Massachusetts Candidate Carl Sciortino “Comes Out” in New Campaign Ad

In a new tongue-in-cheek ad for openly gay Democratic House candidate Carl Sciortino Jr. the candidate comes out to his Tea Party father -- As a liberal Democrat.

“I'll never forget that conversation with my dad where I had to come out and tell him that I was a Massachusetts liberal,” said Sciortino in the clip.

Sciortino is running to fill Sen. Ed Markey’s open house seat against six other Democratic candidates.

“This race is not going to be about who the women’s candidate is or who the gay candidate is, the law-and-order candidate,” said Sciortino. “It’s about who will be the progressive Democratic leader, who has always been there for us and always will be.”

Sciortino has been a leader in LGBT equality while serving as a state legislature, authoring Massachusetts’s 2012 bill adding gender identity and expression to the state’s employment, housing and hate crime laws. During the first legislative battles to roll back marriage equality in Massachusetts—the first state to recognize such unions legally—Carl Sciortino’s election to and leadership in the legislature were key reasons why marriage equality remains the law of the land in the Bay State.

In July, HRC announced its endorsement of Carl Sciortino, naming him a “leading voice on LGBT equality.” His authorship of the Transgender Equal Rights law and his defense of Massachusetts’s marriage equality law show that he will be an effective advocate in Congress.

Watch Sciortino’s newest ad campaign below.

Paid for by the Human Rights Campaign PAC and authorized by the Carl Sciortino Committee.